


The Undead

by Severina



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Community: lands_of_magic, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-26
Updated: 2014-10-26
Packaged: 2018-02-22 18:55:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,604
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2518268
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Severina/pseuds/Severina
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Magic doesn't work on the undead.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Undead

**Author's Note:**

> Written for LJ's lands_of_magic community for the prompt "dark and stormy night" (write a scary story.) My first ever _Once_ fanfic, and interestingly it features zombies. My very first _Live Free or Die Hard_ story was about zombies as well. Apparently I ease myself into new fandoms by using the undead as a crutch. Go figure.
> 
> Post Season One.
> 
> * * *

Magic doesn't work on the undead. 

Belle draws her knees up to her chest, wraps her arms around her legs. Tries to concentrate on Rumple moving purposefully around the table, measuring ingredients and testing vials that seethe and drip with foul potions. She's lost track of how long they've sheltered in the shop, with the windows boarded to block the sunlight and nothing to mark the passage of time but Rumple's patient, endless experiments. 

The need for sleep drags at her, making her dull and sluggish. But every time she closes her eyes, she remembers.

* * *

"Zombies! Zombies in the streets!" Grumpy shouts. "Run for your lives!"

Belle looks up sharply from her hamburger, but the door has already slammed shut behind him. She hears Grumpy repeating the warning outside even as she rises from the booth, her napkin dropping unheeded behind her, her appetite gone. 

She knows what zombies are, of course. She came across a movie one night on television just a few days after she got... after she was… after Jefferson freed her. It was a grainy black and white thing that should have been ludicrous but somehow… wasn't. Rumple had found her curled in the corner of the sofa, one hand pressed to her mouth as she watched a tall gaunt man in a severe business suit ripping the flesh from a young boy who'd merely been trying to fill his truck with gas. He'd glanced across the room and then flicked the television set off quickly, and it was only later when she stopped clinging to him that she realized that the remote control was still in her lap. He had wrapped his arms around her and explained that zombies were simply make-believe; that she had nothing to fear. She had shuddered in his arms, felt his lips touch her hair, her temple, and only after long minutes had she finally been able to relax. She still found it hard to believe that the movie was meant as entertainment – that some people found enjoyment in watching another's flesh being stripped raw and bloody, in the crunch of breaking bone and the greedy slurping sounds the undead made when they fed. But she tried to remember that the people in this land did not know of the ogres who would truly rip your limbs from your body, or of the wraith, or any of the dozen other horrible creatures that were part and parcel of the Enchanted Forest. 

Rumple had promised her that zombies were fictional, that night and on the two nights afterwards when she awoke breathless and sweat-soaked from nightmares in which the undead shambled after her, relentless and uncompromising in their pursuit. Therefore, Grumpy must surely be mistaken.

Still, it would be nice to be reassured. Things are awfully different here, after all. 

She stands uncertainly at her booth and looks around for a familiar face, breathes a sigh of relief when Granny emerges from the kitchen.

"What the hell's he going on about now?" Granny gripes.

Belle bites at her lip. "Zombies?" she offers hesitantly.

Granny snorts. "No such thing," she says. But she still takes her crossbow out from beneath the counter before she strides over to the door, and Belle wavers only a moment before following her through the patio and out into the street. 

They are everywhere. 

Grim and grey-faced, they stumble and stagger down the middle of the road. Belle stands, frozen, and swallows back bile at the sight of the gaping wounds, the slashed torsos and missing limbs. Their moans fill the early evening air, and even as she stumbles back against the fence she sees one of them – a creature in a dark green suit and shiny shoes, a creature who earlier that day had just been a man going about his business, a creature who is now dragging his entrails behind him in long, loping twists and curls, a creature that cannot possibly still be alive – reach out a crooked hand and latch onto someone's arm. The woman screams, high-pitched and terrified, and then the creature is drawing her in, latching rotted teeth onto the meat of her arm and biting down and ripping, tearing, rending—

Belle looks away, closes her eyes. Tells herself that she is safe in her bed, and at any moment Rumple will shake her awake, will enfold her in his strong arms and wipe away her tears and remind her that he will always keep her safe, never again forsake her. She counts to ten, breathes slowly and carefully.

Opens her eyes.

Chaos. Madness.

She watches as Granny is bowled down, surrounded by prone bodies but a bolt sticking uselessly from the chest of the final creature she'd faced. Belle takes a single staggering step forward as the thing buries its maw in Granny's chest and burrows decaying fingers into the wound, and only stops when Granny's eyes meet hers. When Granny mouths "Run" before her eyes flutter closed. 

Instead, Belle reaches blindly behind her for one of the pint glasses that litter the courtyard tables, hefts it in her hand and wades into the fray.

Emma has joined the fight, her gun firing relentlessly. Belle sees one of the zombies go down, grey matter splattered sickeningly on the ground behind it, but the loss of one creature barely slows the tide. Another takes three bullets to the chest and staggers under Emma's onslaught but doesn't falter, and Belle's eyes dart quickly to the creatures that had been felled by Granny's bow.

"Headshots," she says softly. She raises her voice. "Emma! You have to hit them in the head!"

She doesn't even know if Emma hears her, but the zombies do. Belle raises the glass as one of the creatures lurches toward her, one arm reaching out, the other ending in a ragged stump that still leaks thick, brackish blood. She swallows and steps forward, gets ready to swing…

… and then blinks at the whirl of purple smoke, at Regina's strong, determined voice.

"All right, I've had enough of this," Regina snaps. "This is _my_ town, and I _don't_ like strangers."

Belle never thought she'd be happy to see the Queen again. She darts under the arm of one of the creatures, looks up in time to see Regina swing her hands forward and unleash her magic. Belle feels the rush of the energy, the hairs on her arms and the nape of her neck standing on end.

The zombies stumble onward, oblivious.

She has time to see the stunned look on Regina's face, the second hasty attempt, before one of the things snags the woman's arm. Regina slashes out again, and Belle feels the thrum of the magic in her bones but still the zombie staggers forward, and Belle is running toward it with her pitiful pint glass raised above her head even as she sees it's slavering jaw clamp down on Regina's neck, even as it yanks on the flesh with it's slime-covered teeth and the blood spurts and Regina collapses, boneless.

She is swinging the glass down onto the creature's head when strong arms wrap around her waist. She feels the sweep of the magic even before she begins to thrash, closes her eyes and opens them seconds later to find herself in the back room of the shop.

"No!" she yells, struggling out of Rumple's firm grip. "We have to go back! Regina…" She falters then, remembers the arterial gush of the blood, the slick, slobbering sound of the zombie's feeding. She shakes her head, changes course. "Emma—"

"Is dead," Rumple finishes tersely. "Regina is dead. Half the town is dead. But we are alive." He crosses in front of her, places a palm gently on her cheek and makes an obvious effort to quell his temper. "You are alive. That's all that matters, Belle."

She feels her eyes fill with tears, does her best to blink them away. "No, Rumple. It's not."

His hand falls away from her face, curls instead around the head of his cane. "I have everything here I need. I'll find a way to defeat them, Belle. But I need time." She watches the hand on the cane grip and squeeze, the muscle in his arm tense beneath his fine tailored jacket. "Have faith in me, sweetheart. Please. Stay here. Stay safe."

Beyond the clapboard walls she can still hear the screams of the townspeople, the relentless shuffling stride of the undead. But she meets Rumple's eyes, nods her head and wipes away the last of her tears. "What do you need me to do?"

* * *

Belle jerks at the sound of breaking glass, blinks herself awake from her stupor to find Rumple with his head bowed over the table, the remains of the liquid in the latest glass beaker still oozing down the wall behind him.

The screams have stopped while she slept. Now there are only the guttural moans of the undead, the thud of their bodies stumbling against the building and the scratch of their skeletal fingers scrabbling for purchase at the boards Rumple had magicked into place over the windows. 

She opens her mouth to speak, closes it again. If there were a way she could assist him, he would ask her. Soon, she'll rise from her place on the floor, go to him and embrace him and ask him to rest in her arms. Give and take solace with him, finally, at the end.

Now she just rests her cheek on her knees, watches as he takes a breath and then reaches for another potion. 

But magic doesn't work on the undead.


End file.
